


Warehouse 12

by TextualDeviance



Category: Primeval, Warehouse 13
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-15
Updated: 2013-11-15
Packaged: 2018-01-01 16:02:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1045805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TextualDeviance/pseuds/TextualDeviance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Uploading another from my fic archive! </p><p>In this one, the Primeval gang stumbles into a strange anomaly situation when a couple of Americans come for a visit.</p><p>Takes place in early series 4 of Primeval, and the end of season 2 of W13.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warehouse 12

Connor rubbed his eyes. Mornings were never his strong suit in the first place, and even less so when there was a meeting involved. It didn’t help that he still felt disorientated in this new world to which he and Abby had returned: strange people, strange places, and strange protocols at this new ARC; a funhouse mirror version of their old life.

Besides, he hadn’t yet had a cup of tea.

Abby, sitting to his right, noticed his dour look and petted his arm gently. “This should be over soon, I hope. And maybe if it’s a slow day, you and I can sneak off to that supply room on the fourth level, hey?” She smiled at him significantly.

Now that was an idea he could get his mind around. He smiled back at her. “Here’s hoping for a slow day, then.” He settled back, mental images of an afternoon's fun taking his mind off of the numbness of the conference room.

Finally, Burton walked in, trailed by a short, young man in glasses and an ill-fitting suit. “Good morning everyone!” The ARC’s director said calmly. “Thank you all for coming to this early meeting. I know you’d rather be doing something else, so I’ll be brief.”

Connor leaned over to Abby. “Who the hell is that?” He whispered, nodding at the young man.

Abby shrugged. “No idea.”

Burton caught his eye. “Since Mr. Temple has voiced the question on everyone’s mind, allow me to introduce Dr. Douglas Fargo.” He gestured at the man beside him. “Dr. Fargo is the head of an American research and development company called Global Dynamics, and has agreed to do a two-week residency here at the ARC, using some of GD’s newest tech to help us with our latest project.”

Connor frowned in annoyance. First, he’d come back to find out his old job had been farmed out to tha t… annoying little gir l… and now this American bloke—who looked altogether too young to be running a company—was going to get his hands all over the new project? He began to wonder whether life in the Cretaceous may have been better.

“Hello!” Fargo said brightly—a little too brightly for the early hour. Connor hated him already. “Thanks for letting me come by and see your little operation, here. I’ll try not to be too much trouble for you, and I hope I can help out. ...” he began an eager, long-winded speech about himself and his company.

Connor tuned out, looking around the room to see how this interloper was being received. Most were staring on in some measure of fascination, but Matt, leaning against the wall across the room, looked suspicious. At a pause in Fargo’s blather, he spoke up. “Pardon my asking, Burton” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, “but where did you find this bloke? I’ve never heard of this … Global whatever. Does he even have proper clearance?”

Fargo’s face fell, and he started to speak, but Lester, sitting next to Matt, piped up. “He does. Global Dynamics is actually connected with the American military. We’ve worked with them before on other things—just not for this project.”

“Fair enough, then, I—“ Matt was cut off as Becker burst into the room.

“Excuse the interruption,” he said, “but you all might want to the come to the ops room. There’s something strange going on with the detector.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Jess chirped at him, getting out of her seat.

In moments, the team had filed out, most going to their stations in the operations room. Jess sat down, frowning in confusion at the readouts. "I don't understand. This doesn't look right at all."

“Let me take a look. I did build this thing, after all,” Connor pushed her aside.

Jess reluctantly relinquished her seat and stood behind him, little hands on her hips, face flushed with indignance.

Connor sat down and scanned the screen. The detector’s screens were all lit up, as if there was an anomaly alert, but it was detecting something else. Instead of pinging on radio signals, it was noting something entirely different: A strong interruption in the visual spectrum over one small area north of London.

Lester’s voice echoed from behind him. “I’m getting reports of a lot of traffic on the phone lines,” he said, holding up his phone. “There are calls going into the police and emergency services, and they’re all reporting creatures—big ones—heading down the streets.”

“It’s an anomaly, I guess, but this doesn’t make any sense,” Connor muttered, frustrated. “OK, let’s at least see where you’re coming from, you bugger.” Typing furiously, he directed the detector to centre in on the location of the strange disturbance. In a moment, the detector brought up a profile screen of a building there. “It looks like … It’s an old munitions depository, from the war.”

“Wait, what?” Fargo elbowed his way in, looking at the screen and seeing the satellite photo of the location. “It’s not! Oh! Oh, no!”

“What?” Connor said.

“The Warehouse. Claudia!” Fargo cried.

“Who?” Connor frowned at him. The only Claudia he knew of was the one Cutter had gone off about who supposedly looked like Jenny.

Fargo spun around. “Claudia Donovan. She's my—“ He broke off, flushing deeply. “Never mind. I’ll explain later. Right now, we need to get there, and fast. Can we do that?”

“Of course,” Matt grabbed his jacket. “That’s what we do.”

“You’ll need to stay here, though,” Becker put a hand on Fargo’s shoulder. “You don’t have field training for this.”

“No field training! I—“ He balled up fists of frustration. “Look, let’s just say that I’ve been in far more dangerous situations than a few dinosaurs running around the countryside, OK?”

Becker looked over at Matt for a decision.

Matt sighed heavily. “OK. You can come. But stay out of the way, and if I tell you to do something, you do it. Understand?”

“Got it.”

***

The scene on their arrival was sheer chaos. The dinos that had come through the strange anomaly had already started wreaking havoc on the small village near the location of the old depot—the place Fargo had called Warehouse 12. Matt, Abby, Becker and the soldiers headed off to contain the creatures, leaving Connor and Fargo behind to deal with the anomaly itself.

Connor strolled around, detector in hand. “It’s got to be nearby. Look for a bright light—something that looks like bits of refraction.”

Fargo shook his head. “I’m sorry, man, but I can’t help you find your anomaly. I have to find Claudia.” He dashed off in the direction of the depot.

“Fargo! Don’t! You daft git. Get back here. If you run into that anomaly on your own, you could become lunch for a raptor.”

“Then don’t let me go alone. Come with me.”

“I can’t. We have to find the anomaly and get it locked before anything else comes through.” Connor indicated the equipment cases parked on a trolley behind him.

“But!” Fargo fidgeted, face flushed in fear and anger.

Connor sighed. Something about the young man reminded him just a little of himself—at least how he was in a world that no longer existed. “Look. I’m guessing your Claudia is a clever lass, yeah?”

“Of course!” Fargo beamed proudly.

“Then she’s probably managed to find herself a safe place. The best thing we can do for her now is to get that anomaly sealed up, a’ight?”

Fargo opened his mouth to protest, and then closed it again, sagging in a defeated way. “You’re probably right. I just … I hope she’s OK, that’s all.”

Connor smiled gently. “I hope so, too. Really. Now let’s go find this thing, yeah?”

 

As they strolled purposefully around the site, curiosity, as it often did, got the best of Connor. “So, what is this place, anyway? You called it a warehouse?”

“The Warehouse, actually. Well. One of them, at least.” Fargo puffed as he tried to keep up with Connor’s pace.

Connor smiled to himself just a little. In addition to sparking longed-for romance, his time in the Cretaceous had also buffed up his heretofore geek physique to rather more impressive proportions. “What do you mean?”

“Uh.” Fargo’s face scrunched up. “Well, I guess you’re probably allowed to know this: The warehouses are special places that house dangerous objects.”

“What, like bombs and stuff?”

“Not exactly, no. More like … violins that can make you go on a rampage if you play them. Or toys that hypnotize little kids. Creepy stuff, really.” Fargo waved slender fingers in the air as he spoke.

Connor frowned. After all his years working with the ARC, little could surprise him, but this was still something new. “Really? So it’s like me gran’s loft, but gone all deadly?” He frowned a little at the seemingly innocuous, squat building ahead of them. “There are tchotchkes of mass destruction in there?”

“Yep! Well, no. Not this one. This is a decommissioned one. The current one is in … Well, never mind that.” Fargo loosened his ill-knotted tie. “This place is empty. Or it should be, at least. Claudia only wanted to stop by and visit the place H.G. Wells had told her about.”

“H.G. Wells? What? Like, ‘War of the Worlds’? Isn’t he dead?”

“She’s … I mean … It’s a long story. Never mind. What the—“ He stopped short, as did Connor, as they came upon what looked like a giant sheet of transparent Mylar, stretching across the front of the warehouse, creating a shimmering, wavering field of distortion.

Connor stared, open-mouthed. “Uh?”

“Is this one of your anomalies?” Fargo asked, whispering for some reason.

Connor shook his head. “No way. At least not any anomaly I’ve ever seen.” He glanced down at his handheld detector. The odd reading did show that he was at the right place. “It could be, I guess, but, our anomalies look more like a sort of… shattered glass starbursty sort of thing. This is entirely different.” Slightly worried about potential effects of being too close to the field, he backed off.

Fargo followed suit. “Didn’t you say something about locking it?”

Connor shook his head. “Yes, but I don’t think the locking mechanism is going to work on this.” He held up his wrist; his compass wasn’t showing any signs of disturbance, and the metal he wore and carried exerted no pull. “The electromagnetic charge from the locker would have no effect on this thing, whatever it is. I’m going to have to get some more of Burton’s physics guys out here with some other equipment to have a look at it—try to figure out what’s going on here.” He reached for his phone. No sooner had he got it out of his pocket, but the giant, shimmering panel disappeared with a flash and a soft snap.

“Whoa.” Fargo sputtered quietly. “I guess we’ll never know now.”

Connor frowned. He wasn’t so sure. “Maybe. If it’s in any way related to our anomalies, it might well pop up again. We should probably stay here a little while to see.” Suddenly, his phone, still cradled in his dangling hand, came to life. He jumped, startled, and then answered it.

“Connor?” Becker’s voice was slightly staticky—mobile coverage in a remote place like this was still spotty.

“Hey, mate. What’s going on with the creature hunt?”

“It’s the weirdest thing! We were chasing a herd of—OK, you’d know what they were—and they suddenly just vanished, like they’d never been there before. Except for some of the damage they did, there’s just no trace of them.”

Connor spat out a surprised laugh. “That’s really strange, because we just came across the anomaly…thing…and it just disappeared, too. And it wasn’t really an anomaly anyway.”

“I’m officially confused.” It wasn’t like Becker to sound so bewildered, and Connor grinned.

“You and me both, Becks. I’m going to call back to the ARC and see if they can bring out some other monitoring equipment—maybe pick up some lingering traces of something it may have left behind.”

“Copy that. I’ll pack up the crew here and head your way.”

As he hung up, he turned and looked at Fargo, who was fidgeting and pacing next to him, his own tiny phone to his ear.

“Come on! Answer!” He mutttered. He looked up, catching Connor’s eye. “Claudia. I still can’t get her.” He hung up, dejected. “I’ll be happy to help figure this out in any way I can. I may even have some monitoring equipment with me that's better than what you guys have,” he said earnestly, “but I’ve got to find her, too.”

***

Abby strolled up to Becker, wiping a little sweat from her neck. Chasing down dinos was exhausting work. “What did he say?”

“The anomaly is closed already—at the same time all our dinos disappeared. He also said it didn’t look like a regular anomaly.” He shouldered his pack, heading for the vehicle convoy parked nearby.

“What? What did it look like, then?” She hurried to catch up with him—he always seemed to forget her legs were so much shorter than his.

“Dunno. He didn’t say. He’s calling in the study team.” He opened the passenger door of his truck. “Come on, we’re heading over there, now.”

Just as she was about to step in, something caught her eye across the street. From a second-floor window of a small inn on the corner, she saw a brief flash of bright red hair, accented by a neon blue streak, and a pale hand pressed to the glass: a young woman stood there, staring out. Someone just observing the chaos, maybe, but then the body language was suddenly all wrong. A different arm snaked around slender shoulders, and violently wrenched the figure from the window. Abby gasped a little in shock.

“Abby?” Becker looked at her in confusion. “Are we going?”

She shook her head. “No, you go ahead. I just saw something I want to check out. I’ll find a way to catch you up.”

Fortunately, Becker knew by now to trust her instincts. “Sure. Just be careful, yeah?” He walked around to the driver’s side, ruffling her hair as he went. A year ago, he would never have done that—and she’d have kicked him if he did—but separation and subsequent newfound familiarity had given them a much stronger bond than they’d had before. She now found the touch comforting, rather than condescending.

“Of course. You know me.” She smiled at him.

“I do. That’s why I’m telling you to be careful!” He called through the window as he drove away.

 

Bounding quickly across the street and over to the inn, she stared up again at the window where she’d seen the young woman. Only a curtain was visible, now. She mentally made a note of where the room was, to be sure she could find it once she was inside. Just as she got to the front door, however, a small, strangled noise from the alleyway behind the building caught her attention. Trotting quickly over, she saw again a flash of the red-headed figure, and heard some unintelligible cursing in a lower voice coming from around the corner, followed by sudden sounds of violence. Then she heard a motorbike start up. Dashing down the alley, hoping to catch them, she came up short as the bike sped toward her, the man behind the handlebars grimacing and holding his side with one hand, seemingly unconcerned with the small figure in his path. At the last second, she dived out of the way, coming to land somewhat painfully against a pile of broken-down cardboard.

“Wanker!” She hissed at the retreating bike. She did notice, however, that it only had one rider. Where had the young woman gone? Picking herself up, she got to her feet and jogged over to the corner where the figure had disappeared. Abby gasped a little when she saw her: sprawled on the damp cobblestones, the lithe, young woman was still, a fresh gash over her left eye flowing blood down her cheek and onto her denim jacket.

“No!” Abby called and rushed to her. Crouching down, she dragged the edge of a sleeve down over her hand, and mopped gently at the blood.

Suddenly, the woman blinked, squirming away. Sputtering in a sharp American accent as she scrambled to her knees, she pushed back at Abby. “Get off of me, you filthy creep, I’m not going to—“ She broke off as she realized Abby wasn’t her attacker. “Oh. Crap. Sorry.”

“It’s OK! Really. I’m here to help you. My name’s Abby.”

“Claudia. Hi.” She started to get to her feet. “I’m fine, I…” Her eyelids fluttered again and she sat down, hard. “OK. Not so fine, apparently.”

“Looks like you took quite a knock to the head,” Abby said, reaching out tentatively again to the wound.

Claudia winced, but let Abby attend to her. “Yeah, well. My own fault, I guess. Head butting a guy looks so much more effective in the movies.”

Abby couldn’t help a chuckle. “I’m sure. Looks like you got something in on him, though. He was holding his side when I saw him.”

Claudia flexed a Chucks-covered foot. “I thought I heard some ribs crack. Awesome.”

“So what the hell happened, if you don’t mind my asking?” Abby mopped up the last of the blood, satisfied that it was congealing properly around the shallow cut.

Claudia sighed. “Long story, and you probably wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh? Try me.” Abby smirked. “I’ve fought dinosaurs. Nothing bothers me now.”

“Dinosaurs?” Claudia frowned. “Wait … is that what was crashing through the street?”

Abby nodded. “Yes. I think, at least. They’re gone, now. The ones I’m used to don’t exactly vanish like that.”

Through the fog of her head injury, Claudia still figured it out. “Oh! Wait. Are you from that … anomaly place thingy?”

“What?” Abby was surprised for a moment. “Yes, I am, but how—Oh! Claudia! Right! Are you that Fargo guy’s Claudia?”

Claudia laughed. “That Fargo guy. Yeah. Though as for being his? That’s a matter of debate.” She smirked. “Anyway, yes. So, OK. So that guy you saw? He sort of … kidnapped me.”

“That’s horrid. Why?”

Claudia shrugged. “The Warehouse.”

“Warehouse?” Abby raised an eyebrow.

“That’s an even longer story.”

“Oh.”

“So, yeah, he was going off about having control of ‘it’—an artifact, I guess—and how it was going to make him rich, and he wanted me to get him into the warehouse to see what else he could find. Got mad when I told him I couldn’t get in, so he said he was going to hold me and keep unleashing havoc until he got someone who could. He was in the middle of calling my team when you guys showed up.” She snarled a little. “Asshat took my phone. And my Farnsworth, too. Artie’s gonna kill me.”

“Farnsworth? And who’s Artie—“ Abby started. “Wait. I know. ‘Long story’.”

“Right!” Claudia laughed again. Abby liked the sound—and she liked the young woman herself, too.

“So you said he was unleashing havoc? Is he the one responsible for those dinos, then?”

“Yeah, from what I can tell. I think we need to find this guy, and fast.” Despite her pain and dizziness, Claudia began to stand.

Abby helped her up, steadying her once she got her balance. “Sounds like it. Let’s call my team—and your Fargo—and see what we can do.”

***

The scene at the anomaly site—or The Warehouse, as Claudia had explained to Abby on the drive over—was a mess of Burton’s physics folks and Becker’s team, with Matt trying gamely to corral them all into some semblance of usefulness. Fargo and Connor were standing around one large piece of equipment, animatedly regaling each other with descriptions of what it did.

“Lads? If you’re done geeking out…” Abby called over to them.

“Abby! Hey!” Connor looked up, smiling warmly at her.

Fargo’s face lit up and he immediately dashed over. “Oh my god! Claudia!” He petted her face. “Are you OK? What did that monster do to you?”

“Dougie! Seriously. I’m fine.” She pushed him away, but sported an affectionate smile anyway, and took his hand. “I got him worse than he got me, anyway.”

Abby moved over to Connor’s side, giving the other couple space in which to commune. “That’s the infamous Claudia,” she said, nestling under his arm.

“I gathered.” He smiled, looking at the two as they chatted. “Fargo told me all about her. Said she was some sort of amazing tech genius, and that I should pick her brain sometime about AI-guided firewalls.”

Abby raised an eyebrow, following his gaze as he looked over the cute redhead. “What, am I not geeky enough for you?”

Connor laughed. “Hey, you have nothing to worry about. I’d probably feel inadequate with a techy girlfriend like that anyway. You kick my arse in just about everything else. I gotta have something on you.” He leaned over and nuzzled her ear.

“If you must, I suppose,” Abby teased. “So, what the hell’s going on here, then?”

“Well, we took the info you gave us about how this bloke supposedly has some sort of artifact or something, so now we’re trying to see if we can find some sort of signal it emitted when it activated, so we can track it—and him—and get the thing back where it belongs. It’s hard if we don’t know what we’re looking for, though. Are you sure Claudia had no idea what he has?”

“Positive. She said it was relatively small—something he could carry around with him, at least—but she never saw it. She called up her boss and he’s checking their database for it, but coming up empty so far.”

“Terrific. I guess we’re just going to have to do this the hard way.” Connor bit his lip, and turned back to the machine he’d been toying with.

Just then, Fargo and Claudia trotted up behind them. “Guys! Good news!” Fargo waved his phone at them. “Artie just called and he’s tracked down Claudia’s Farnsworth.”

“Her what?” Connor raised an eyebrow.

“It’s a video mobile,” Abby petted his arm.

Connor stared at her. “Wait, you know about a tech I don’t?”

“I’ll tell you all about it later,” Claudia interjected, grabbing Connor’s arm. “Where ever this thing is, our guy is probably there. We need to go find him or he’ll probably send a herd of… somethingosauruses running through the halls of Buckingham Palace.”

“A’ight then. Can’t have that. Lizzie’s poor Corgis!” Abby chuckled, and they all dashed off toward a truck.

“Wait! Abby! Connor!” Becker ran to catch them.

Abby turned. “Hey?”

“One, you’re not going anywhere without me.”

Abby grinned. Since they’d come back, he’d been hovering over them like a obsessive nanny. “Check.”

“Two, I just got a call from the ARC. Jess picked up another weird anomaly reading and Lester said something about… well…” He made a strange face. “Aliens.”

“What?” Abby stared.

Becker shrugged. “Small town claiming they’re seeing little grey people flooding out from the countryside. About a half-hour north of here.”

Fargo piped up. “That’s about the same place Artie said the Farnsworth signal was. Looks like we found our guy.”

“Aliens? Seriously?” Connor smiled, fascinated. “Did we just stumble into an epsiode of Torchwood or something? We’re nowhere near Cardiff!”

“Yeah, and you’re nowhere near John Barrowman. Scoot.” Becker teased, pushing Connor away from the truck’s driver’s door.

***

“It doesn’t exactly have GPS,” Claudia rolled her eyes at him for—Connor had counted—the fifth time since they started combing through a huge car park, looking for her Farnsworth, which had apparently been dropped by her captor, as he was nowhere to be found in the vicinity.

“What about your mobile—your normal one?” Connor asked.

“Artie already tried to trace it. It’s off or broken or something. It’s not sending out a signal of any sort. So it’s definitely gone for now. The Farnsworth is the only thing we have any signal on at all, and Artie can only get to a 100-yard radius on that.”

“So much for superior tech,” he mumbled under his breath.

Fargo, wandering near him, heard, and giggled softly. “Claude’s tried to reverse engineer and upgrade the things. It apparently didn’t go well. Oops.”

Abby strode up next to them. “Becker just called. Said he and Matt found the site, out in the middle of some barren field. Said it looked exactly like you described—like some sort of big sheet of shiny material. It looked like you could see through to the other side, but it was also showing something else. He said it sort of looked like a two-way mirror or something.”

Connor nodded. “Yeah, that sounds like what we saw at the warehouse. What about the aliens?”

“He looked through the window thingy and saw something that really did look like a huge spaceship, but there were no aliens there. Said he and the lads were going to start roaming through town to see if he could find them.”

“Great. So we could have little grey monsters roaming around here with us?” Fargo looked up, worried.

Connor shrugged. “I suppose so. Best keep our eyes peeled.” Secretly, he sort of hoped they would find the little creatures. Looking under parked cars for Claudia’s special PDA was far less interesting than he’d thought it would be, but Becker insisted he and his team should handle the invasion—such as it was—on their own.

“Got it!” Claudia’s triumphant shout echoed off the concrete. Coming up from between a pair of aging sedans, she held up her prize: A small, metal box, which she promptly opened and started poking. The other three gathered around.

The tiny, round screen on the device popped up, and a smiling, relieved face filled it. “Claudia! You found it! Fantastic!”

“Hi, Artie!” Fargo crowded around, waving.

“Fargo.” Artie’s face grew serious. “What hell have you gotten my Claudia into this time?”

Fargo blanched. “Nothing, sir, it wasn’t—“

“Dougie didn’t do anything wrong, Artie. I told him to go on without me while I visited the Warehouse site. It was stupid, I know.” Claudia smiled sheepishly.

Artie sighed, the sound tinny and thin through the small speaker on the device. “Whatever. But you’re safe, now. So now we need to figure out what this artifact is and what to do about it. You don’t have any other supplies with you, do you?”

Claudia shook her head. “Nope. Didn’t think I’d need them. Thought I was on vacation—just tagging along with Dougie, seeing all the silly tourist spots while he was schmoozing with the dino people here. Oh! Speaking of….” She grabbed Abby and Connor, squishing them in closely so they could be seen on Artie’s screen.

“Artie, is it? I’m Connor Temple, and this is Abby Maitland. We’re with the ARC. And we’re taking good care of your people here, I promise.”

“I certainly hope so, Mr. Temple.” Artie rubbed his face tiredly. “But—no offense—I sent our team along just in case. Claudia, Pete and Myka hit the first flight out as soon as you called. They should be there in about 10 hours. I hope things get resolved before then, but just in case …”

Claudia huffed indignantly. “I’m fine, Artie, really. I don’t need babysitters.”

“They’re not babysitters. They’re your coworkers. Now I’m going to go do more research on what this artifact might be. You kids go find this guy who has it, OK?”

“We’re not kids!” Claudia protested, but it was too late—the screen went blank. She grumbled a little.

“Is he always like that?” Connor asked sympathetically.

Claudia shrugged and grinned. “Artie is an international man of mystery. I’ve stopped trying to figure him out.”

“So, shall we go join up with Becker and see if we can find ourselves some aliens?” Abby chirped, almost gleefully.

“Lead on!” Connor said, showing her the way with a hand.

“Uh… Guys? I don’t think we need to join Becker.” Fargo’s voice suddenly went shaky.

“What?” Connor turned to look where Fargo was pointing. Standing calmly in some bushes near the car park’s entrance was a small, gray figure. About the size of a child, it had a large, egg-shaped head and enormous dark eyes. It reached up a spindly-fingered hand, but said nothing. Then, out of the shadows behind it, several more figures popped up, and started moving toward them.

“Holy Martians, dude.” Claudia whispered reverently. “Should we ask them to take us to their leader?”

Instinctively, Abby and Connor drew their EMDs. Connor looked around. They were vastly outnumbered. If these aliens were in any way quick or dangerous, they’d be in big trouble. Yet, something about these little creatures seemed somehow innocuous… and familiar. He wracked his brain, trying to remember what he was reminded of.

Fargo seemed to be thinking the same thing. “I swear, I’ve seen these little guys before.”

“What? Are you saying you were abducted by aliens, Dougie?” Claudia looked around them, her voice betraying no nervousness. “Did they probe you or something?”

He nudged her sharply. “No! I just… Maybe it’s just a collective consciousness thing. They all look like some sort of classic Roswell resident or something anyway.”

“Whatever they are, they’re getting closer. Abby, I don’t want to shoot them, but I will if you say so.” Connor trembled slightly, his finger twitching a little near the trigger.

“Not yet. They’re not making any threatening moves.” Abby hissed quietly.

“Are you sure?” Fargo squirmed. “Because they’re getting awfully close, and I kind of consider that a threatening move, myself.”

Indeed the small crowd of aliens had gotten very near. Still moving silently and quickly, they were now within just a few metres of the group.

“Uh, Abby? I’m kind of inclined to agree with Dougie. These little creeps are starting to freak me out. Can we make a decision, please?” Claudia finally started sounding afraid.

“Not yet. Not… Yet…” Abby sounded less and less sure of herself.

The crowd tightened, and started raising their thin, delicate fingers, aiming toward the faces of the four humans. Connor watched Abby carefully, looking for any sign that it was OK to fire. “Abby! I can’t take this!” He started to squeeze the trigger.

Suddenly, without a sound, the entire cadre of tiny creatures evaporated into thin air.

“What the hell?” Claudia spat in surprise.

“Oh, god!” Fargo bent over, beginning to hyperventilate in shock and relief.

Connor patted his back gently. “They’re gone. Just like the other anomaly thing. And the dinos, I’m guessing.”

Abby nodded. “Yes. One second they were there, the next—bang—it was like turning off a switch or something.”

Claudia wrapped her arms around Fargo, trying to soothe him. “That’s just… That’s weird, is what that is. I wish I had my laptop with me. I’d go looking through the Warehouse database myself to try to figure out what this artifact is. Artie knows everything in there pretty well, but he’s still not that great with some of the stuff.”

“In any case,” Abby noted sensibly, “I’m guessing we can assume that our artifact thief has now taken off again. And without him having something we can easily trace, we’re buggered.”

***

After helping with a bit of PR-heavy cleanup around the town (“Honestly, folks, it was just a shoot for an advert! Really!”) the four retired to the local pub for some food and brainstorming while the rest of the team worked on both anomaly sites.

Connor was impressed with the way Claudia mowed through a massive plate of chips. Between bites, she thought out loud. “What on earth do dinosaurs and aliens have in common?”

Sipping thoughtfully on a frothy pint, he shrugged. “They’re both cool, I suppose? To me, at least.”

“And me,” Fargo grinned. The first 20 minutes or so of their meal, they had bonded quite a lot over a shared love of comics. Claudia had joined for a while, but then noticed Abby was mostly silent—apparently feeling a tad left out--and started talking music with her instead.

“So, what? We have some sort of dangerous geek on the loose, then? With a killer comic book?” Abby pushed the crust of her sandwich around the plate.

Claudia shrugged. “Might be, I guess. We had a superhero guy once. It was kind of awesome, actually. I got to drag out this totally rad suit for my gal Myka to help take him down. She looked amazing in it.”

“Oh, really?” Connor perked up. Abby kicked him under the table. “I mean, yeah, I’m sure that was cool.”

Fargo frowned a little. “What all did the guy say to you when he had you? Something about getting rich with the artifact?”

“Yeah. Said it was going to make him wealthy and famous, like its previous owner.” Claudia stuffed her last chip in her mouth.

“And you didn’t get his name, either?” Abby sighed.

“Sorry. Was too busy, y’know, trying to find a way to get away from him.”

Abby smiled uncomfortably. “Yeah. I can see how that might be a distraction. How’s your head by the way?” She reached up tentatively to push a lock of hair out of Claudia’s face and look at her wound.

Claudia let her. “Bit of a headache, still. Though this is helping.” She quaffed another healthy draught of her beer.

Connor’s mobile suddenly echoed loudly from where it sat on the table between them. He picked it up quickly. “Matt, hey. How goes at the site?”

“Actually, I have a tiny bit of news on that that might help,” Matt said tiredly. “We found traces of a few things at both sites. I have no idea what they have in common, but we thought you might know.”

“Oh?”

“Well, there was some sort of protein, bits of polyester and iodide.”

Connor repeated the list aloud, so the rest of the table could hear it. All looked confused. “I’m afraid we don’t recognize the combo. Can you have Jess look it up?”

“Already tried that. She came up short.” Matt sounded frustrated. “This was so much easier when we were just trying to find dinosaurs.”

Connor laughed a little. “Yeah, no kidding. At least we should have the rest of Claudia’s team here in a few more hours. Maybe they can help.”

“I hope so. Hey, wait—“ Matt broke off, saying something to someone else that Connor couldn’t quite hear. “Fantastic. Gotta go, Connor. We apparently have another one. Someone’s saying they’re seeing soldiers in old war uniforms roaming around a shopping centre. I’ll text you the location.”

“Great. Thanks!” Connor relayed the information, and the gang got up to go.

“Wait,” Claudia stopped them at the door. “Let me try Artie again. Maybe this new info can help. I’ll be with you again in a few.”

As they waited outside the pub, Fargo fidgeted nervously, looking back through the window at Claudia as she animatedly chatted with Artie, drawing curious stares from the pub’s patrons.

“So, how long have you two been dating?” Abby asked gently.

“Dating! Ah! Well, that’s complicated.” He smiled and flushed.

Connor couldn’t help giggling. “Sounds familiar.” He looked at Abby significantly. “We got it sorted, though.”

Abby sidled in next to him and took his hand. “Mmhm.” She nodded in agreement. “Guess being stuck in the past with no other higher mammals can change one’s perception a bit.”

“Stuck in the past?” Fargo raised an eyebrow.

Connor started to explain, but Claudia burst out of the door, grinning wildly. “Guys! Artie thinks he has it. He says he’ll ping us back in a few when he’s got it tracked down.”

“Great!” Fargo cheered animatedly. “In the meantime, lets go track down some shopaholic soldiers.”

***

The shopping plaza had already been cleared of customers by the time they arrived, and was eerily quiet; all that was left was the acrid aroma of spent ammunition. A few of the old-school soldiers had already gone down—their bodies littered the aisles, a sharp contrast with high-end fashion and housewares. The living ones seemed to have fled to safer spaces for the time.

Abby looked at her detector. The fauxnomaly—as they’d started calling them—was about 100 metres to the east. Stopping at a map kiosk for the centre, she tried to pinpoint it there. “Oh, now this is interesting,” she said quietly.

“What is?” Connor came up behind her, resting a hand on her shoulder.

“The fauxnomaly. It looks like it’s in the cinema here.” She indicated the point on the map.

“Yikes. Can you imagine watching a movie there when that thing cropped up? Screw Avatar—this would be some sort of completely crazy 3D experience!” Fargo chuckled.

“No kidding!” Claudia smirked. Then her face suddenly froze in a mask of glee. “Wait! Dougie! That’s it! You completely awesome nerd, you!” She leaned over and spontaneously kissed him.

He happily returned the kiss, mumbling into it. “What’s it? What did I--?”

Abby cleared her throat. “Claudia?”

Claudia pulled away, grinning sheepishly at Abby, then and looked at Connor and Fargo. “OK, remember how you guys said those aliens looked familiar?”

“Yeah?”

“Right, well. That’s because they are. Or at least they should be to any geek worth his or her DVD collection.”

“DVD?” Connor looked bewildered as ever.

“Think about it: Where else are you going to see dinosaurs, aliens and World War Two soldiers?”

Just as Connor started to get it, the Farnsworth started making its annoying buzz. Claudia flipped it open excitedly. “Artie! We figured it out! I think, at least.”

“Me, too.” He grinned up at her from the glassy screen. “I figured out those trace elements, at least.”

“Let me guess,” Claudia said, “film stock, yeah?”

“Yep! You got it. I’ve already started looking up film-related artifacts. In the meantime, I also found out a little more about our thief. Turns out the security system at the old Warehouse was still online, and it sent me a hologram of the guy. I’m still waiting for confirmation, but he seems to look like a guy named Jason Beakins, and he’s a film student there in London.”

“Makes sense,” Fargo chimed in. "If it’s film-related, then he wants some sort of something to make movies with, maybe?”

“Exactly. I’m going to paw through the database a little more. You go find this guy.”

“We’re on it!” Claudia closed the device.

“So, uh, what about those guys?” Abby pointed at a pair of soldiers, creeping out of the entrance to a toy store, guns raised.

“Becker’s team should still be around to manage them. And if we’re right, they’ll be gone shortly anyway.” Connor told her. “Let’s go to the cinema!”

***

Just as Abby had thought, the fauxnomaly was in one of the cinemas, blending so well with the screen—which was itself still showing an animated children's film—that it was almost unrecognizable, save for the images of a bloody battlefield that shimmered over the otherwise-innocuous and colorful background. She put a finger to her lips. “Be quiet, guys. He could be anywhere around here, and we don’t want to scare him off again.”

Connor nodded, and silently propelled the other two in front of him. Pointing up, he indicated that he and Claudia would aim for the projection room, and Abby and Fargo should scan the area around the screen.

Slipping silently up the back stairs toward the loft, Connor could hear the soundtrack of the film, along with some other, more human sounds: Pained, ragged sobbing. Catching Claudia’s eye and confirming that she, too, heard the noise, he took a chance and called out. “Jason? Are you in here?”

The sobbing stopped abruptly. For a moment, he was terrified that he’d made the wrong decision. Aiming his EMD up the remaining stairs, he pressed on carefully. “Jason? Come on out. We just want to talk.”

As he finished mounting the stairs, he saw their target: Sagging limply in a chair near the projector, his face in his hands, a young man shook quietly. Connor glanced back, and Claudia nodded: This was indeed her captor.

“Jason?” Claudia said quietly.

Jason looked up, startled. “You! No, you get away!” He tried to scramble away from her, wincing in pain as he held his wounded side. The young man—close to their age—looked broken, in more ways than just the ribs Claudia’s foot had landed on.

“Take it easy!” Connor ordered. “She’s not going to kick you again. Not if you behave, yeah?”

Jason sat back down in the chair, rubbing a hand across his nose. “I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. It’s all gone wrong. Stupid thing.” He glanced over at a table behind him.

Claudia saw it first, beelining for the table. On it sat an old, wooden movie clapperboard, stained and smudged from years of use. Quickly stripping off her jacket, she gingerly picked up the object, wrapping it up tightly.

“What on earth were you trying to do?” Connor asked, coming around back of the chair and standing next to Claudia, blocking Jason’s access to the table.

Jason sighed heavily. “I just wanted to make good movies, I guess. I found that thing in a prop vault, and went to use it on a one-man film I was making in my dorm room at school. It did its thing, and well, I kinda went a bit off after that. There was a big sticker on the back with an address—said Property of The Warehouse--and I figured if that place had more things like this, maybe I could make some really amazing films. Y’know, be like all my director idols and stuff?” He looked up at Claudia. “Then I ran into her, and it basically went downhill from there.”

A voice from the bottom of the stairs echoed up. “Connor? Claudia? It’s gone now, did you—“ Abby reached the top of the stairs, followed shortly by Fargo.

Connor turned. “Meet Jason.” He nodded.

Fargo smiled nervously. "Uh, hi?"

“It’s OK," Connor said, waving them in. "He’s fine, now.”

“So’s this,” Claudia indicated the jacket-bound artifact. Fargo bounded up the remaining stairs to stand next to her.

“I’ll call Matt and Becker,” Abby said, standing off to the side and slipping out her mobile.

“What the hell is that thing, anyway?” Jason asked, glancing up at Claudia.

Claudia shrugged. “Not entirely sure. Just a powerful thing that you’re not supposed to play with, doofus. Oh, hang on.” Her Farnsworth buzzed again. “Heya Artie!” She said brightly.

“So, I got it!” Artie’s voice echoed from the device. “You’re looking for Steven Spielberg’s—“

“Clapper thingy. Yeah. We found it. It’s wrapped up at the moment.”

“Excellent! Pete and Myka are in a cab on their way there with goo bags as we speak, so we can get it properly under control and back here where it belongs.”

“Sounds fabulous. I’d kinda like my jacket back. Don’t want to accidentally, y’know, cause a shark infestation in the Thames or something.” She grinned at him.

“Uh! No. Definitely not. Oh, by the way?”

“Yeh?”

“Nice work, Agent Donovan.” The device went silent.

Claudia flushed, uncharacteristically shy, and closed the device, grinning madly.

Fargo gazed at her in admiration, sidling up close and daring to slip an arm around her waist. She let him, and leaned into his touch.

A burst of noise came up from the stairs as Becker, Matt and the rest of the team piled into the small room. “All sorted then?” Becker said, relieved.

“Yup. Our American friends here figured it all out and we’re all back to normal, now.” Connor smiled broadly.

“Wonderful. It’s been a mad day, and I’m dying to knock off early.” Becker stretched and grinned slyly. “Anyone up for watching a film with me?”

\--End--


End file.
